» Install Vinyl Flooring: Kitchens Part 6

Did you know that there are more than 300 types of vinyl flooring available to you today, that mimic the looks of French country ceramic, or even wood plank floors, but are non skid, durable and truly beautiful, costing far less than their counterparts but in some cases wearing equally as well as the materials that they mimic?

Vinyl flooring is a far cry from the linoleum that our grandparents used, but is still is sometimes not given a fair evaluation when compared to more costly and more elegant types of flooring such as ceramic, wood or flagstone even though in many instances it will cost less than half what those do and last just as long.

A great place to start in evaluating vinyl floors will be a showcase online, or a retail showroom where you can evaluate the materials as well as textures, patterns and colors, but also find the amount and approximate the cost of flooring for your kitchen.

There are vinyl floorings that can meet your budget regardless of what it is, going as high as fifty cents a square foot up to 6 or 7 dollars a foot. Vinyl is a super method of flooring anywhere that needs high traffic, high moisture protection and will work in kitchen, laundry, entry ways or bath.

Check your flooring or subflooring to be sure of its condition. It will need to be flat, clean and smooth with any nail holes or protruding nails sanded and covered with putty. Vacuum it well and make sure that no loose particles of anything are lying around. Over time, even a grain of sand will work its way through the flooring .

Gently remove the shoe molding or other molding that you will be sliding the flooring under.

Taking your handsaw, trim off the bottom of the doorways molding by laying the handsaw flat and sawing at them which will give just about the exact width that you need to slide your vinyl flooring under the doorways frame.

Lay your vinyl sheet flooring out in the room, marking any areas that you will need to cut excess flooring from, and cut that with a razor knife.

Those places that you cut, you can reinforce with masking tape so that it is not prone to tearing in corners and along the wall.

Set the flooring out in the position where it will rest, leaving plenty of extra around the wall, and make cuts around the obstructions, such as pipes, or other things that need to be cut around.

For inside corners make small half circle cuts until it can lie flat on the floor.

Roll back the flooring next to the wall so that the subfloor, or whatever you are laying the vinyl flooring on is visible.

Make a template using the craft paper, of exactly what you will need to cut by lining up the edges of the paper to the wall and tape it down every foot of so.. now put double faced tape every foot or so on the craft paper, and take the backing off of the top side of it.

Roll the vinyl back into place on top of the template and press it down, so that it will stick to the vinyl flooring..
lift the vinyl back up and cut to where the template is sticking.

Using a straight edge of some type, a square or a metal yard ruler, cut the vinyl along the template edge.

You can use this same method on each of the four walls in your room.

you are then ready to adhere around the edges and in high traffic areas, using the manufacturers suggested adherent to assure that the edges of the vinyl flooring do not lift up.

(For the floor to be fully adhered which is not always a positive step, however if you choose to do so, spread the adhesive material onto the entire floor surface and roll the vinyl flooring back down into place. If you chose this step you will want to keep any real traffic such as people or furniture off of the vinyl for at least 24 hours.)

Replace your molding and then trim the vinyl. Replace shoe molding and trim along the walls of the room.